When you are writing a paper in nursing, sometimes your evidence will be quantitative (such as lab results or a client’s vital signs), and sometimes it will be qualitative (such as your observations and descriptions of a client’s appearance or state of mind). The following are examples of the kinds of evidence you might use:
a client’s lab test results
data from a nurse’s client chart
the research findings in a journal article
direct observation of a client’s physical or mental state
Because clients can have multiple medical problems that need to be prioritized for treatment, nurses use evidence to support more than one nursing diagnosis.